Introduction

In animal recording systems for cattle, perinatal death is divided into a) abortion:
before 210 days of pregnancy (Finland) or 20 days before expected birth (Norway),
b) born dead: dead calf after 210 of pregnancy (or before 20 days before expected
birth) or died before 24 hours after birth, c) dead before identity marked: calves
died later than 24 hours after birth, but before they are individually marked, and
finally d) dead later as young calf in the preweaning age. For sheep, which have a
birth season, the perinatal death is also given by stillbirth, death during indoor
season and at spring pasture. Later death will be death on pasture. For goats there
exist figures for abortion, stillbirth, dead before identity marked, and dead before
preweaned similar to cattle. For piglets perinatal death is usually given as number
of stillborn per litter, and percent dead piglets before weaning.

In horses there is scarse information on incidence of perinatal death. The incidence
in this animal is therefore unknown. However, a large survey in the UK revealed the
major reasons for stillbirth in horses was 38.8% umbilical cord torsion or problems
with long cord and ischemia, 13.7% intrapartum stillbirth or 9.8% associated with
infections [1].

In production animals the focus should be on incidence risk, animal and farmers' welfare,
and economic losses due to lost production potential. This paper will present available
incidence risk for the Nordic countries and production animals. Some calculations
on economic losses for some species and countries are also presented and discussed.

Materials and methods

The baseline animal populations in different Nordic countries were extracted from
available publications after searching the Internet on http://www.PubMed.comwebcite. In addition data were retrieved from annual reports, websites on the Internet or
personal communications with persons in the different countries. Numbers of death
from different countries and different species was grouped according to available
data classification.

Finally, the Norwegian economic efficiency control data for dairy production were
used to identify mean and standard deviation of economic values for a pregnant heifer
as well as a bull mature for slaughter. These economic suppositions were fed into
an excel spreadsheet using @RISK version 4.5 (Palisade, London, UK) to estimate the
total economic value of lost calves with the observed variation in 20% of the population.
For economic calculations for other species and countries, an estimated mean from
the best qualified suppositions was implemented.

Results

Cattle

The loss of calves in the dairy cattle population in the Nordic countries is in Table
1.

Table 1. Available figures for abortion, stillbirth and neonatal death in dairy cattle from
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden (%)

From Denmark the death rate of beef cattle is reported to be 3–4% at birth and additionally
4–5% deaths in the lifespan 1 to 180 days (see Table 1, footnotea). Denmark also reports a large difference between herds, and 29% of herds have a
death rate of 3.75% while 7% of herds have a death rate of more than 20%. In general
the death rate especially around birth is much higher for male than female calves,
8.1% and 5.3%, respectively. From Norway the incidence of dead beef calves at birth
is 4.4% out of 17,708 calvings [2]. Additionally 3.2% of the calves died from birth to 180 days of life. This comprises
779 and 542 calves, respectively. Altogether 40% of the total beef cattle population
is included in the recording system in Norway. This will give a total estimated loss
of beef calves at 2,000 dead calves at birth and 1,400 calves later in the first half
of their year, a total of 3,400 calves.

Under Norwegian conditions the death numbers in Table 1 for dairy cattle were fed into a spreadsheet model with these suppositions: value
(net revenue) of a pregnant heifer 3825 ± 3328 NOK, meat production from bull calf
287 ± 71 kg, the value (net revenue) per kg meat 11.46 ± 9.06 NOK. The figures estimated
the loss of abortion to 6.0 ± 3.7 Mill NOK, dead calves at birth to 27 ± 17 mill NOK,
dead calves before id-marked to 9.2 ± 5.5 Mill NOK, and later dead calves to 20.4
± 12.5 Mill NOK. In total the loss of 18,000 calves in dairy production consists of
a total money value of 64 ± 39 mill NOK. The distribution is illustrated in Figure
1. In total 64 mill NOK corresponds to 8 mill €.

Figure 1. The distribution of the estimated opportunity money value (net revenue) of 18000 calves
in the Norwegian milk production system during 2006.

For the beef production the corresponding figures for the loss of 3,400 calves will
be 12 ± 10 mill NOK.

The supposition from Finland and Sweden were given at 100 per alive calf. According
to Table 1 the total calf loss in Finland was 32000 calves. This will correspond to a money
value of 3.2 million €. An income value of a bull for slaughter or pregnant heifer
is estimated at 1500 € which gives a total loss of income at 48 million €. However,
from this amount of money one has to take away the variable cost to compare with the
Norwegian estimates given above. If the net revenue is set at 30% of the total income,
this corresponding net revenue in Finland will be approximately 14 million €. If this
estimation was done according to the death rate in Denmark, the 14 million € would
be 40 million € and for Sweden, with an estimated loss of 16,500 calves, it would
be 7.4 million €. Thus, the rough estimated loss of dairy calves would be 8 million
€ in Norway, 14 million € in Finland, 40 million € in Denmark, and 7 million € in
Sweden, a total amount of approximately 70 million €.

Sheep

For sheep, Finland reports a sheep population of 54,000 to 56,000 ewes with 8,000
ewes more than 2 years old. These ewes had a mean 2.2 lambs (live and dead). At 2
weeks after birth the live lamb value per sheep was 2.0. This gives a total loss of
0.2 lambs per sheep or 1,600 lambs. For ewes <2 years old, a total number of 1,500
are within the control system. These ewes give birth to 1.7 lambs (live and dead)
and have 1.6 still alive 2 weeks after birth. The loss is thus 0.1 lambs per ewe,
or total 150 dead lambs. These figures correspond to 16% of the ewe population the
total loss of lamb should be around 10,000 lambs.

Norway has 303,000 ewes within the recording system. This comprises 27.8% of all sheep
in 2005. The mean lamb number per sheep was 1.95, of these 1.87 survived. The death
rate at birth is 3.97% or 0.08 per ewe. In total this would be around 24,000 lambs.
The number of lambs per ewe is lower in the herds outside the recording system. Estimated
for the whole country, 64,000 lambs out of at total number of 1.6 million lambs are
stillborn. Additionally 3.0% is lost during the spring indoor season and 1.1% is lost
during the spring pasture season. In the total population this would add up to 66,000
lambs. The total lamb loss in Norway is thus approximately 130,000 lambs. The cost
of one stillbirth lamb in Norway is estimated to Norwegian krone (NOK) 1098 or in
total 70 million NOK. One dead lamb on spring pasture is estimated at a cost of NOK
1176 or in total 77 million NOK. According to these estimates the total money loss
for the sheep industry in Norway is about 147 million NOK [3].

Iceland has approximately 380,000 lambing ewes and 455,000 winterfeed sheep. The loss
of lamb is approximately 9% out of a total of 620,000 born lambs (Sigurdur Sigutarson,
personal communication, 2007). This will make up a total loss of approximately 56,000
lambs.

Goat

The goat population in Finland has 5,000 to 6,000 female goats. No figures exist for
perinatal death. Norway is the "goat country" of the Nordic countries with 33,000
goats within the recording system, which is 70% of all the goats. The total population
is 47,000 goats. These goats in the recording system had 0.7% aborted kids, 2.6% dead
kids at birth, 1.1% died before id-marking and 0.6% before 180 days of life. The total
death rate is thus 5.0%. This is a huge improvement since a period in 1990's with
2.3% abortion, 3.1% dead kids at birth, 0.7% died before id-marking and 1.1% died
before 180 days of life, a total death rate of 7.2%. The reasons for the increase
of abortion during the 1980's and the decrease later in 2000's are still unproved.
It is extremely difficult to estimate the money value of goat kids, as many of the
male kids are destroyed under the present production. If one could produce halal meat
of kids, as is done in the Netherlands, the value could be estimated as for sheep
app. 1000 NOK pr kid. Under supposition of 1.8 kids pr goat the total number of kids
would be 85000. A 5% loss will comprise 4200 kids of a value of 1000 NOK, a total
of 4.2 mill NOK.

Swine

The figures for pig population, production as well as lost production due to perinatal
death in the Nordic countries are listed in Table 2.

Discussion

The estimates of death given in Tables 1 and 2 and text are pretty exact according to the recorded figures given from each country.
However, the economical suppositions are difficult and very preliminary. The calculation
for cattle in Norway with uncertainty is an example of how it could be done. This
calculation illustrates that the supposition would be different from farm to farm
and also visualises the possibilities if the production is improved to the best part.
However, one should be aware that not all losses due to neonatal death could or should
be removed within animal husbandry. The reason being that many of these deaths are
caused by malformation, inbreeding etc, that are supposed to be removed from the production
line, or simply are to costly to correct within the frame of veterinary medicine and
sound agricultural business. One should also be aware that the economic supposition
is changing from country to country and from year to year. Estimation under uncertainty
is a nice way to demonstrate the effects if the supposition is changing. Increased
production will also influence the prices, as the market value then would decrease
according to the well known price demand dependency. The calculations with economic
suppositions including variability are done only for Norwegian conditions. The principles
could be transferred to other countries, but not the money value. The figures on perinatal
death in Norway, compared with other countries looks fairly low. Despite this, the
total loss for perinatal death in production animals is estimated to be, 64 million
NOK for dairy production, 12 million NOK for beef production, 147 million NOK for
sheep, 4.2 million NOK for goat, and 283 million NOK for swine. This makes up a total
money value of 510 million NOK or approximately 64 million €.

Conclusion

There is a large difference in perinatal loss within different production animals
within each country as well as between countries. For example, the money loss for
neonatal death in Norway is estimated to 510 million NOK or 64 million €. It is difficult
to identify exact figures for the number of losses in different countries as well
as the monetary value. For example, the total loss of calves within the dairy production
is approximately 175,000 calves. Altogether 10% if these calves died in Norway and
had under Norwegian supposition a money value of 64 mill NOK or 8 million €. One should
be aware that it is impossible and not correct to imagine the total removal of this
loss, however, if 10 to 25% could be saved this would be a large amount of money.
There is also indication of large variation between countries, and even larger between
herds.